Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/385

Rh And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I understand the large hearts of heroes,

The courage of present times and all times,

How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm,

How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch and was faithful of days and faithful of nights,

And chalked in large letters on a board, "Be of good cheer, we will not desert you";

How he follow'd with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up,

How he saved the drifting company at last,

How the lank loose-gown'd women looked when boated from the side of their prepared graves,

How the silent old-faced infants and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipp'd unshaved men;

All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,

I am the man, I suffered, I was there.

The disdain and calmness of martyrs,

The mother of old, condemn'd for a witch, burned with dry wood, her children gazing on,

The pounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence blowing, covered with sweat.

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,

Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,

I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin,